Electrical terminals are frequently manufactured in the form of a continuous strip containing individual terminals in side-by-side relationship. The terminals may be directly connected to each other by portions of the strip or the terminals may be spaced apart and integral with one side edge of a continuous carrier strip. In either event, it is usually a requirement that the terminals of the strip be reeled onto a reel in a particular orientation so that they will be removed from the reel in a preferred orientation for insertion into the cavities of a connector housing or for crimping in a crimping press onto the ends of wires. When terminals are manufactured as one-out strip (strip having one terminal in each pitch length of the strip), it is customary to design the terminals and reel the terminals after manufacture in a manner which that the terminals of the strip will be in the required and preferred orientation when they are subsequently de-reeled at the time of crimping or at the time of insertion into cavities in a connector.
Under some circumstances, economies in the manufacture of terminal strip can be achieved if the strip is produced as two-out strip. A two-out terminal strip will commonly have a central carrier strip having side edges with terminals extending from each of the side edges. Ordinarily, two-out strip is manufactured with the terminals in both of the side edges in the same orientation; for example, if the terminals have formed portions which extend laterally of the strip, the formed portions of all of the terminals will extend in the same direction from the plane of the carrier strip. When two-out strip is manufactured, the central carrier strip is slit along its centerline thereby producing two individual strips which are reeled in the conventional manner. One of these strips produced will be in the preferred and proper orientation for subsequent processing such as crimping or insertion into the cavities of a connector. The other strip produced will, however, not be in the correct orientation and it is therefore necessary to re-reel the other strip of terminals before they can be further processed. The re-reeling process adds significantly to the cost of producing terminals in strip form and the necessity for re-reeling to some extent cancels out the economic advantages achieved in manufacturing the strip by the two-out method.
The present invention is directed to the achievement of a method and apparatus for manufacturing, slitting, and reeling of two-out terminal strip in a manner which avoids the necessity of re-reeling one of the strips of terminals produced by the two-out process.